I was reading an
article about conversion therapy tonight. It’s not the first
article I’ve read, nor will it likely be the last. I have also seen
several videos told from the perspective of people who have been
subjected to it. Conversion therapy is the attempt to use psychology
to “convert” a person’s homosexual attractions to heterosexual
ones. It is mostly practiced by churches and religious institutions
and is based on the idea that one’s sexuality is a psychological
choice, conscious or unconscious, based on childhood experiences and
trauma rather than a difference in brain organization and chemistry.
Generally, this type of therapy is a combination of counseling
techniques, though there have been reports of psychological
manipulation and “guilt-tripping”. This kind of therapy stems
from the idea that homosexual attraction itself is morally wrong.
First, before I
continue, let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way as this
is what it’s always going to come back to. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
states:
“Or don’t you
see that the wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God, neither
prostitutes, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor receiving
homosexuals, nor penetrating homosexuals, nor greedy, nor thieves,
nor those intoxicated, not abusive people, not those who plunder;
they will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (my translation,
modified literal)
There are other
passages in both the Old and New Testaments which could be drawn
from, but this one is representative of the general idea. In the Old
Testament, homosexual intercourse was explicitly forbidden in the
Mosaic law and punishable by death regardless of whether it was male
or female homosexuality. Where this prohibition on pain of death is
concerned, I will only say that this was a part of the contract God
made with Israel on Sinai as to the rules they were to keep, both
civil and sacred, and that St. Paul, along with the author of
Hebrews, was explicit in that this contract was superceded and made
of no effect once the New Covenant or Contract was put in place
through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words,
as Paul put it, if you are in Christ, you are not under the Law, but
under grace. The Torah prohibitions and proscriptions were Israel
specific to begin with, and now simply no longer apply because of
Jesus Christ. They’re done.
That leaves the New
Testament passages.
The understanding of
what Paul is saying turns on what he means by “inherit the kingdom
of God”. Traditionally, this phrase has been interpreted to mean
alternately “be saved” or “enter heaven” depending on one’s
denominational theology. But I don’t think that’s necessarily
what’s being talked about, and I think you have to understand
Paul’s thought processes here to understand what he’s saying.
For St. Paul, as I
have written about before, the problem of Hamartia was located in the
“flesh”, that is, it is biological in nature (Romans 7). If you
look at his description of of the “works of the flesh” in
Galatians 5, they all can be attributed to fear, aggression, feeding,
and sexual responses governed by the human limbic system. They are
all in fact responses seen, not only in human beings, but in other
animals in nature. In other words, what he is describing are natural
biological responses to stressful stimuli. With these he contrasts
what he calls the “fruit of the Spirit” which he sees as
something else entirely.
Paul
dedicates much of his writing in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, and Colossians to these contrasting concepts. In his
writings, he describes the Christian experience as one where the
Christian lets go of everything else which could possibly hinder his
union with Christ. He describes the Christian as having died with
Christ, and everything after that had to be Christ expressing His
life through the Christian.
So
what does this have to do with “inheriting the kingdom of God”?
It is my belief that this phrase is synonymous with “walking in the
Spirit” which Paul contrasted with the “works of the flesh” or
these natural biological responses. Inheriting the kingdom of God is
where one steps back and allows Christ to express through the
Christian, His energies working in cooperation with the Christian’s
own energies. This requires asking Him, and then internally (and
externally if necessary) letting go of one’s personal attachments
(as Paul described in Philippians 3), and surrendering the control of
oneself to His energies working within. Paul was contrasting when
someone presents this way as opposed to presenting with their own
natural biological responses. It is how you can consciously gauge
whether or not it is He or you who is in control at the moment. St.
John described the same phenomenon using different language in his
first epistle.
So,
what then is Paul saying in this passage? That those who are
presenting in this fashion are presenting with their natural
biological responses and are not surrendering themselves to His
control. It is a similar
gauge to what Jesus used when He said, “You will know a tree by its
fruit.” It is instructive that in the Galatians passage he also
includes things like anger, jealousy, factionalism, discord along
with murder, adultery, and sexual immorality when he says those
practicing them will not inherit the kingdom of God. Consider how
many church members could be convicted of just jealousy and
factionalism, yet how many excuse their behaviors which are listed by
Paul in the same category as murder and adultery? The passage in 1
Corinthians 6 and the passage in Galatians 5 are giving the same kind
of information along with the
reminder that if one is presenting in this fashion then they are not
cooperating with and surrendering to His energies, or “walking in
the Spirit” in that moment. This was something Paul taught
consistently in every church he planted and was involved with and
those churches he wrote to knew what he was talking about, except for
Rome to which he had never been. This was the reason why he went into
so much more detail about the mechanics of it between Romans 6-8.
So,
Paul is saying that those who practice such things aren’t
surrendering to to His energies and are therefore functioning in
their own, natural biological responses.
Consider
that fact for a moment. Paul’s expectation and teaching was that
the whole practice and function of Christians was to surrender
themselves, abandon themselves wholly and totally to Jesus Christ,
and cutting off from themselves anything, anything,
which got in the way of that. Christian practice is, fundamentally, a
discipline of denying yourself and surrendering yourself to Him so
that He would act, speak, and express through you.
In
1 Corinthians
7, this idea becomes very clear where Paul has to tell the
Corinthians, yes, it’s okay for you to marry if you feel the
obligation to, and that it was better to get married than to be
inflamed (presumably with one’s sex drive which varies from person
to person). But just the fact that he felt he had to clarify that it
was okay, and his statement in this chapter where he says it is a
better practice to remain unmarried if you can help it should
demonstrate his mind and teaching on this subject. Being married
required that you split your devotion and attachment between Christ
and your spouse. In other
words, he didn’t want it to become a hindrance to their spiritual
practice and the goal of their faith which was, in his words, “the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3).
Allowing
your natural biological stress responses (flight, fight, feeding,
sexuality) to dictate your actions is an impediment to union with God
through Jesus Christ. One’s natural responses are frequently
harmful to oneself but more so to those around you physically,
emotionally, and mentally. Furthermore, they engage the Hamartia
disorder described in Romans 7, causing guilt, self-justification,
and a whole host of ever deepening psychological disorders and
further harmful actions as the psyche seeks to defend itself in a
downward spiral of destruction. Surrendering yourself and allowing
His energies to take over circumvents and short circuits this and
brings one into a closer relationship with Him as you get to know Him
better.
So,
going back to the initial topic of conversion therapy. There is a
wealth of medical and psychiatric data which demonstrates that one’s
sexual attraction is a combination of factors. Yes, environment and
personal experiences may play a part, but there is clear evidence
that in many if not most cases there is a real neurological component
as well. The brains of homosexual persons tend to resemble their
heterosexual counterparts of the opposing
sex rather than those of their own sex. A homosexual man’s tends to
resemble a heterosexual woman’s, and a homosexual woman’s tends
to resemble a heterosexual man’s.
In
other words, in many if not most cases, homosexual attraction is as
much of a biological response
as heterosexual attraction
which isn’t going to change regardless of how much counseling the
person receives. It’s like trying to counsel the autism or ADHD out
of someone. It just isn’t going to happen because that’s how
their brains work. It’s a case of the neurology at work affecting
the psychology of the individual.
In
every article I’ve read, men and women who are genuinely seeking
God by faith go into these conversion therapy programs, which range
from the mildly psychological to the patently abusive, hoping that
these sexual feelings they have will go away. In every article I’ve
read on the subject as well, there is a near 100% rate of recidivism.
In other words, these programs fail 100% of the time, and leave their
participants more confused, angry, and guilt ridden than when they
started because their natural sexual attraction happens to be towards
their own sex. My understanding is that the suicide rates of those
coming out of these programs is relatively high as well.
It
is my opinion, but I think perhaps a better course of action would be
to simply accept that for some people it is natural for them to have
a sexual attraction towards the same sex. This does not make them
worse sinners than anyone else. There is no such thing as a “better
sinner” or a “worse sinner”. It means their brains work
differently from the typical brain and do not need to be corrected by
us, just accepted.
Where
Christian practice is concerned, I do not see this as working any
differently for the biologically homosexual as for the biologically
heterosexual. The goal is the same, union with God through Jesus
Christ, and the method of getting there, denying oneself and
surrendering control and cooperating with His energies instead of
allowing for one’s own natural biological responses, is also the
same. For the heterosexual, it is expected in Holy Scripture that
they are to remain chaste in all ways, ceding control to His energies
as opposed to their own biological responses, as they pursue Jesus
Christ, and there is no change in expectation for the homosexual
either. Marriage at the time of Paul’s writing was not an option
for the homosexual. It is in today’s society, at least some of
today’s societies anyway.
Regardless,
the goal of the faith of Jesus Christ is union with God through Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ is our goal and our means of reaching it,
letting everything else go which impedes us from getting there and
which impedes us from ceding control to His energies. This does not
change based on how our brains operate or how we present
biologically, and unrestrained heterosexual behavior is just as much
of an impediment as unrestrained homosexual behavior.
